Partners and Chauffeurs
by GoldSeven
Summary: Set during "Shadowboxing". As Peter and Hesam rush patient after patient to the hospital, Peter learns two things: That his partner is not a chauffeur, and that it's not his responsibility to save every life on the planet. Two-shot. Canon. Paramedfic.
1. Chapter 1

Set around _Shadowboxing_. Peter, Hesam, Emma.

Outset: I never got a satisfying answer why Hesam stopped being resentful at Peter for degrading him to chauffeur. Add the fact that I always wanted to explore Peter's motives to turn away from his maniac redemption rampage, AND that I always wanted to know how a girl in a tiara and a pink tutu ended up unconscious in a hospital storage room.

Well, scratch that last bit. But Megan appears. Ish. :D

Warning: An enormous amount of medical stuff. I've been doing my homework, folks. Please let me know if this is too much. :D I can't promise you I'll stop if it is, however.

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**Partners and Chauffeurs  
**.

"Dispatch, this is Oh-five-nine; we're clear."

"Five-nine, section two. Report to Officer O'Keefe. On a one." The dispatcher's voice was clipped, precise. There was no room for banter today. Or for mistakes.

"O'Keefe, section two, on a one," Hesam repeated. "We're on our way. – Again," he added with a glance at Peter, who was still strapping in as Hesam pulled out of the ambulance bay, on their way back to the crash site for the fifth time that day.

Since the extent of the disaster was still not fully known and people were still being extracted from the wrecks of two collided trains, NYPD dispatch had transferred control of the rescue operations to a task force on scene, which oversaw the rescue works and assigned ambulances where they were needed most. Peter hit the lights and sirens as they pulled out into the street.

They had done these past four calls in less than two hours. Hesam, who had more routine with the paperwork than Peter did, had just made quick notes on the run forms while Peter had sat down to catch his breath. Together, they had restocked and cleaned the back of the ambulance, and they'd been out again minutes later.

"You sure you're OK?" Hesam asked Peter with another look at him.

"Yeah," Peter said, vaguely gesturing ahead as if to direct his partner's attention away from him and back to the road. "Just tired. I'm fine."

Earlier that morning, Peter had been nothing but elated. Over the past months, he'd tried to be a better paramedic using super strength, then super speed; now, his newly acquired healing ability enabled him to save lives, heal injuries, take away pain much less conspicuously. He could use just enough of it to make a patient pull through, to make sure they weren't permanently disabled, to make them better.

Then it had failed him for the first time. And after healing their last patient's broken spine, and the man's burns in the hospital, he had nearly blacked out. Clearly, it hadn't been designed for permanent use.

They arrived on scene again thirteen minutes later, and were sent by an overtaxed-looking officer O'Keefe to one of the derailed subway cars, where the fire department had very recently succeeded in extracting several more people from the wreckage. Peter's heart sank as he saw several motionless forms covered completely by blankets. Police and fire fighters were everywhere, between them EMTs of services from all over New York City, and several people who had made it from the wreck on their own with light or no injuries. Some of them were looking for friends and family. Peter saw a young woman with a cut on her forehead staggering around, herding a couple of fancifully dressed up kids, frantically looking around and shouting for someone named Megan.

The FDNY officer showed them to a boy of fifteen or sixteen lying on a backboard on the ground. Two FDNY EMTs were sitting next to him, ventilating him with an ambu-bag. Peter could see some injuries to his legs, none of them serious enough to be truly dangerous; this suggested internal, probably spinal, injuries.

When they reached the group, Hesam had already pulled the laryngoscope from the airway kit he was carrying, and Peter hurriedly set down the long board to help. The boy's face was slightly bluish.

"Couldn't find a pulse," one of the EMTs told Hesam as she moved aside, and the paramedic sat down by the boy's head to intubate. Peter couldn't feel a pulse either as he laid his hand against the patient's throat. He watched Hesam sinking the laryngoscope into the boy's mouth to move the tongue aside and get the tube in between his vocal chords into the trachea.

"You're in," he told Hesam at once when he felt the tube pass under his fingers. He looked around for the second EMT, the one with the ambu-bag, and saw that the man had already disconnected the mask from it and was holding the bag out to Peter. He nodded his thanks, and connected the end of the endotracheal tube to the ambu-bag.

"Bag him," Hesam told him, and listened for the lung sounds as Peter gave the ambu-bag a squeeze, pumping air into the patient's lungs. Peter saw both sides of the chest rise, confirming that the tube was in the right place.

Hesam looked at Peter. "We'll bag and drag. He needs a surgeon at once."

Bagging and dragging referred to putting a patient on oxygen and then getting him to the hospital as quickly as possible (as opposed to "stay and play", where you stabilized a patient on scene), although the term had at first alienated Peter somewhat, reminding him of Primatech nomenclature. He nodded, handed the bag back to the male EMT, and made sure the patient was strapped securely to the backboard, immobilizing his spine to prevent further injury. As Peter taped the boy's forehead into place, he took a moment to lay his hand against the patient's cheek, closed his eyes, and concentrated.

There was a moment of vertigo as he swayed, catching himself just in time before he fell across the patient, and Peter knew without looking that it hadn't worked. It had been the same on their last call. The more he used it, the more uncertain this ability got.

He saw the female EMT give him a concerned look, but neither her partner nor Hesam seemed to have noticed. He drew a shaky hand across his face, and gave her a quick nod to indicate he was all right.

"We'll take him out," he heard Hesam tell the other two EMTs, and got to his feet to take the top end.

At least, that was the plan.

As Peter rose, suddenly everything went black, and he found himself crouching on the ground again, silvery little dots filling his field of vision, slowly receding to its edges. The female EMT had moved in quickly and gripped his arm to steady him. She was a sturdy little woman with a blond ponytail and a freckled face, who seemed a lot stronger than he had given her credit for.

"Easy," she said, giving him a searching look. "You OK?"

"Long day," Peter managed by way of explanation. "And too little breakfast." He wanted nothing more than to stand up quickly and get to the truck with Hesam and their patient, to try again and heal the boy en route to the hospital – the same way he had done with the last – but he didn't trust himself to stand just yet. He was glad that he hadn't even managed to lift the board, or else he might have dropped their patient.

Hesam got around the board and crouched down in front of Peter. "Are you sure you should be out here?" he asked, concerned. "I thought you didn't look too good while we brought the last one in."

"Positive," Peter said. "Gimme ten seconds, OK?"

"I'll take the board," the other EMT now offered, and Hesam nodded his consent. Together, the two men lifted the board and quickly carried it back to where the ambulance was parked.

The woman had stayed with Peter, and held him back when he made to get up immediately after the other two had left. "That wasn't ten seconds," she told him with a slight smile.

He half-heartedly returned the smile, counted to five, and then got up with the EMT's help. The silvery dots were back, but they stayed at the edge of his field of vision, receding fast. "I'm OK," he told her as he started after Hesam. "I'm just tired."

He managed not to stagger on his way to the truck, which was quite a feat on the uneven ground. The EMT was a few steps behind him, not trying to support him, but not letting him go alone either. He still felt rather shaky and sweaty, and supposed he looked the part.

With the other EMT's help, Hesam had secured the board on the stretcher and put the patient on the monitor by the time Peter arrived. He took one look at Peter and seemed to contemplate their options.

"Can I help?" the woman asked, from behind Peter.

"Yeah," Hesam said without hesitation. "You can get in front and drive."

"Sure," she said.

Peter realised there was no way for him to turn things around, but he gave it a try. "I can handle this," he told Hesam. "Let me stay in back."

Hesam looked at him under raised eyebrows. "Believe me, Peter, you can't," he said. "And believe it or not, I am perfectly qualified to handle this." The edge in his voice was subtle, but eloquent enough to convey what he didn't say – _more qualified than you are_.

Peter bit back everything else he could have said, and just nodded.

"You want me in the back with you?" he asked.

"I can handle this. Just look at you. I don't even think you could get in an IV in that state." Hesam's voice was back to normal, matter-of-fact, and Peter had to concede that he was probably right. "But yeah, get in back."

He helped Hesam to put their patient on the oxygen outlet so they wouldn't need anyone bagging, but let Hesam do the IV. The woman – who had introduced herself as Ginny – climbed in the driver's seat, and Peter, still slightly wobbly, sat down on the bench opposite the stretcher. Ginny started the engine and patched to the hospital, to tell them they were coming, and tell dispatch they'd cleared the scene.

After just two minutes, their patient went into v-fib, the uncoordinated contractions of the heart that often preceded a cardiac arrest.

"Peter," Hesam said, already reaching for the defibrillator pads. "I need you to get to the biotech case, and pull up a milligram of epi." He set the pads to the boy's chest. "Get clear."

He'd started at 200 Joules; the kid jerked, but the rhythm didn't change.

Peter pulled up the epinephrine, knowing that this might be his last chance to somehow try and heal the boy, but there was no way for him to touch him now.

Hesam waited for a couple of seconds, watching the squiggly line on the monitor, and then, with a look at Peter, shocked the patient at 300 Joules.

The pattern on the monitor levelled out to a flat line.

"Epi," Hesam told Peter, his voice tight, but Peter was already pushing the drug through the IV.

Nothing changed.

Peter tore his eyes away from the monitor and told Ginny through the hatch, "Patch to Mercy Heights to tell them we're coming in with a working code." He looked back at the pale boy, whose skin was turning slightly blue, while Hesam started CPR. Peter remembered what Noah had told him – that Jeremy's ability stopped at bringing someone back from the dead. What was the ability's definition of dead? Was it a flat line on a monitor? Was it six inches of flat line on the strip? How far had _he_ been gone when Jeremy had healed a hole in his chest? He definitely couldn't remember.

"Atropine?" he asked Hesam after two minutes had passed.

Hesam gave a jerky nod and hung the paddles back against their attachments at the monitor, to have his hands free for CPR. In asystole, it was no use shocking the patient; an inactive heart didn't respond to electricity. The only thing that might restart it now was the drugs.

Peter got out the atropine, but just then, Ginny turned a tight corner, and the ambulance gave a lurch. Peter managed to catch himself against the cabinet behind the stretcher, but dropped the vial.

"Sorry!" Ginny called back.

The vial was rolling across the floor, and as Hesam bent to pick it up, Peter took what he knew to be his last chance. He closed his hand around the boy's wrist, and _willed_ the heart to resume beating, the injuries to heal.

The ambulance gave another lurch, and Peter was thrown back again, reeling from another moment of light-headedness. The boy was unchanged, asystole on the monitor. Peter didn't know why the ability hadn't worked – because he'd been interrupted by the ambulance jumping, because he'd overused the gift, because he hadn't known where exactly the boy was injured so he couldn't picture him healing, or because the boy was already dead – it hardly mattered.

Hesam straightened, uncapped the ampoule, and pushed the atropine through, while nodding at Peter to continue CPR.

They arrived at the hospital two minutes later, still doing CPR although nothing had changed on the monitor. Hesam gave the report to the triage nurse, and Peter staggered alongside the stretcher into the crowded trauma room. It was so crowded that they even forgot to send him out.

The doctors worked the boy for another twenty minutes before they finally called him.

Numbly, Peter turned to go, nearly running into Hesam who, too, had stood near the trauma room doors.

"We did all we could," Hesam said quietly.

_You did_, Peter thought bitterly. _I didn't_.

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(to be concluded)


	2. Chapter 2

Second and last instalment. (Slightly) less medi-babble, more character focus. Hesam gets some of the best lines. I love this guy. Can we please make him a regular?

And: Emma!

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"Our luck had to run out at some point," Hesam told Peter later, reasonably, as he wrote up the run report in the EMT room while Peter went through the equipment replacement sheet. Ginny had gone back to the crash site with another ambulance. "We saved four people today. Our record has to be the best in this whole damn city." He looked Peter over. "You feeling better?"

"Yeah." Physically speaking, it wasn't even a lie. Peter felt that there was nothing left in him to drain out, which did have its positive sides.

Hesam gave a chuckle. "You know, the last time you nearly worked yourself to death for weeks in a row, at least you didn't black out."

"Miss those days?" Tiredly, Peter pushed a strand of sweaty hair out of his eyes.

"Not particularly." Hesam finished his report, and gave Peter a scrutinizing look. "What made you stop that, by the way? All that running off on your own, I mean. The impending lawsuit, or me telling you I wasn't your chauffeur?"

They had never talked about that particular incident, and Peter had secretly hoped they never would. He didn't feel up to the discussion right now, so he just shrugged. "A little bit of both."

Hesam got to his feet with a bitter laugh. "Strange that we seem to do better saving people while I _am_ your chauffeur." He went to the table with the spare run forms, and put a small stack of them into his bag. "I'm nearly out of those. – Get over to the supply closet and restock, OK? I'll clean the rig. And maybe you can get us a sandwich or something from the cafeteria."

Peter nodded, and was relieved to find that his field of vision stayed clear as he got to his feet. He cast a look at Hesam's run form to see whether he'd missed anything. "Three epi, two atropine, bag valve mask – no, wait, that wasn't ours…" He skimmed his list again. "Anything I forgot?"

Hesam thought for a moment. "Get a spare roll of tape. We've used up most of ours."

Peter snatched the list and headed for the door. "Right. I'll be back in a minute. Two if the cafeteria is full."

"Pull rank," Hesam told him. "Tell them people are gonna die unless you get those sandwiches now."

"Will do."

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Peter wasn't back after a minute.

When Hesam appeared in the supply room a good five minutes later, it was with an air of worry mixed with exasperation, clearly suspecting that Peter had somehow managed to drop unconscious while resupplying. He quickly found that he hadn't been that far off the mark – except that it hadn't been Peter who had dropped unconscious.

Peter glanced up quickly from taking care of the little girl in pink, now smiling and talking, when only a minute before she had been on the floor, not breathing. Emma was kneeling next to him, now following his glance to the door, where Hesam stood, trying to take it all in.

"Get someone in here with a gurney, OK?" Peter told Hesam as he took the little girl's pulse. "She's got a haemothorax. Emma's drained it, but she needs a surgeon." Hesam didn't move at once, and Peter realised how weird this scene must look to him. "Hurry!" he added, but his tone was almost apologetic.

Hesam shook himself, and turned on the spot to get someone to help transport the girl.

Peter put the ends of his stethoscope into his ears to listen to the girl's lungs. "What's your name, sweetheart?" he asked.

"Megan." She made a face. "It hurts," she added quietly.

Emma, who was keeping a 4x4 dressing pressed on the puncture, stroked the girl's hair. "I know," she said. "It'll be okay. We usually don't do this on the floor. And without anything against the pain. You've been very brave, Megan."

"And very lucky," Peter added, looking at Emma, not the girl, so that she could see his face. "Lucky that Emma found you." He was beaming at her. He knew what it felt like to save a life, had been saving lives almost maniacally for months – but in this instant, he felt happier for Emma than he ever had for himself.

Come to think of it, he couldn't remember ever feeling this happy for himself.

Which was another thing he'd have to think about.

In that instant, a nurse came into the room wheeling a gurney, followed by Hesam and a doctor. Peter mentally commended his partner for being able to find one in today's mayhem, and get her here.

"What happened here?" the doctor asked as she entered, looking from Peter to Emma to the girl.

Peter saw Emma getting up to explain, and carefully picked up Megan to lay her on the gurney. "It'll be OK," he told her again. The nurse shook her head as she reached for the girl's tiara, which was askew on her forehead. Megan held on to it, but the nurse gently tried to prise it from her. "You can't have it now," she told the girl. "But we'll keep it so you can have it back, all right?"

Megan thought about this, but then she held it out to Peter. "Can you give this to Emma?" she whispered confidentially. "It's for special people only."

Peter smiled at her as he took it, looking back around for Emma, but she and the doctor had retreated to the corridor, conversing in low tones. Hesam was waiting by the door.

"I'll give it to her later," he told Megan. "I promise."

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"Let me get this straight," Hesam said when they were heading back to the ambulance bay with their resupplies. "You went to the storage closet for our supplies, found an apnoeic girl in a pink tutu _and_ a plastic tiara, and with the help of a file clerk, performed a thoracostomy? Can't you even go to the bathroom without saving somebody's life?"

Briefly, Peter was torn between anger and amusement, but then he had to laugh. Hesam's words did make the entire situation sound rather absurd, which, upon reflection, he guessed it had been.

"I didn't do anything," he said. "It was all Emma." He still derived a deep satisfaction from the thought.

Hesam threw him a sceptical look. "How'd she know how to do that?" he asked.

"She went to medical school." Peter decided not to mention to Hesam what Emma had told him about dropping out.

"Everyone in this place is full of surprises," Hesam murmured, shaking his head. "And I bet_ she's_ got a secret identity as a prize boxer." Peter followed his glance and saw that Nurse Hammer was passing by an intersection ahead of them, forcefully making way. He noted Hesam had kept his voice down.

"Yeah, but that was something we knew all along, didn't we?" Peter said with a grin.

"Watch it. I bet she could throw _you_ across a room."

Peter contemplated this. "She probably could."

They arrived at the truck, Peter making sure their equipment was in order, then climbing into the front seat as Hesam radioed dispatch, to clear the hospital and confirm that they were going back to the crash site again.

"If _you_ could have any special ability," Peter said with a sidelong glance at Hesam as they drove, lights and sirens. "Like a super power. What would it be?"

"Super power?" Hesam asked. "Like in a comic book?"

"Yeah, something like that."

Hesam thought for a moment, then he laughed. "I'd like to read minds. Just to figure out what goes on in yours."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, I think so. It would be cool to be able to do that, wouldn't it?"

"I guess," Peter said vaguely. "You wouldn't want… a healing ability or something?"

"No. I've already got one, of sorts. And a paramedic with a real healing power? Never going to work. Can you imagine what sort of pressure that would put on you? I just wouldn't know when to stop."

Yet again, since they had started working together, Hesam displayed an astuteness that he wasn't even aware of.

As Peter pondered Hesam's words – and really everything that had passed that day – Hesam looked at him, eyebrows raised. "You didn't, by any chance, think of getting us sandwiches?"

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They were back at the train wreck ten minutes later, and a fire-fighter showed them through.

"We estimate that we've retrieved some one-hundred and fifty people from the wreck alive now," he told them as they walked, Peter carrying the backboard, Hesam the blue bag and monitor. "There are a dozen or so critical cases; the others are being treated on scene. Over here." He motioned to a young woman lying on the ground, who was being treated by another team of two FDNY EMTs, who were bagging her with the ambu-bag. Peter saw that, similarly to the boy they had failed to save on their last run, it wasn't much good. The woman's chest was barely moving. She seemed to have been crushed against something hard; one arm looked broken, and there was blood everywhere on her blouse.

"She's unresponsive," one of the EMTs told them. "We're thinking several fractures, could be spinal injuries. She can't breathe."

"What'ya need?" Peter asked Hesam, grabbing the airway kit.

"Number three blade. Size seven tube." Hesam sat at the woman's head, while Peter unzipped the airway kit and attached the Miller blade to the laryngoscope, handing it to Hesam. The Iranian inserted it into the woman's mouth, looking for the vocal cords. Peter laid his hands on her throat, ostensibly to feel if the tube went down correctly, but as he did so, he closed his eyes and concentrated, picturing her ribs healing, her lung –

"Dammit," Hesam murmured. "Can't see a thing. There's blood everywhere."

Peter reeled back. He knew he had accomplished something, although he couldn't say if it had been enough. The woman's heart rate improved, but only slightly as her airway remained obstructed; her eyelids fluttered as she came to, gagging. Hesam withdrew the laryngoscope.

"Let's put her on the board," he said, and got to his feet. One of the EMTs was already attaching the bag valve mask to the patient's face again, in the hope of getting some oxygen into her that way. The other EMT and Hesam rolled the woman on her side, Peter slid the board under her, and secured her in place. He decided against trying to heal her again. The risk that it didn't work was too high, and he supposed she stood a better chance if they got her to the ambulance at once, suctioned her airway clear, and got her intubated.

She lost consciousness again as they carried her, Peter fighting back the fatigue that threatened to overwhelm him once more. They wheeled her into the rig and secured the board on the stretcher. Peter immediately went for the suction unit, before Hesam could tell him to. His partner nodded approvingly, ready with the laryngoscope at the seat near the patient's head, while Peter cleared the woman's airway of blood and mucus. The woman's cardiac sounds were failing.

"Go for it," Peter nodded at Hesam, laying his hands on her throat again. He closed his eyes, pictured her lungs healing, willing for it to happen.

He wanted to shout in frustration when the ability failed him again, leaving him shaky and exhausted, when he heard Hesam say, "I'm in."

Peter pulled himself together, got his stethoscope, and verified that the woman's lung sounds were right as Hesam pulled out the laryngoscope and stylet, and connected the tube to the oxygen supply. The patient's colour improved almost immediately as highly concentrated oxygen finally filled her lungs.

"Get in front!" Hesam told Peter, who nodded, jumped out and slammed the back door shut. Their patient would pull through, he knew it. And he didn't care how much of it has been his doing, and how much Hesam's.

Peter was still feeling light-headed as he got into the driver's seat, but found he managed to stay focused. He hit the lights and sirens, and pulled out to the hospital. He kept glancing back, but what he could see of Hesam in the rear view mirror, splinting the patient's left arm, looked calm and unexcited, perfectly in control.

When Peter parked the ambulance and got out to help wheel their patient in, Hesam had two IV lines running, the patient's clothes removed and covered with a blanket. The triage nurse acknowledged their work appreciatively as they gave their report. It was, Peter had to admit, a perfect call. A perfect save.

Hesam went to restock – "If somebody drops unconscious in the supply closet this time, _I'll_ be there to revive him, and what'ya wanna bet it's a big, fat, ugly guy? In a pink tutu?" – while Peter wrote up the run form. Back at the ambulance bay, they met Karen O'Neil, another paramedic at Mercy Heights, cleaning out the back of 062 with her partner. She looked exhausted; there were spatters of blood on her uniform.

"Good to run into you," she said. "Jackson just told me there's a CISD meeting scheduled later tonight. If you wanna go."

Hesam and Peter exchanged a glance. "Thanks for letting us know," Peter said. They got back into 059 and cleared.

"You gonna go?" Peter asked.

Critical Incident Stress Debriefings were often set up after particularly traumatic accidents like today, with psychologically trained personnel, to help the rescue workers reflect on the day's events, and share the load with others.

"No," Hesam replied after a moment's reflection. "You know, I feel cynical for saying this, but… we did pretty well today."

"Yeah," Peter agreed. "We did."

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It was dark when he got home; he and Hesam had worked nearly three hours overtime until all the work was done. He had a lot of things on his mind. No, he didn't need a CISD meeting. He'd hardly ever felt less in need of one. The day had been… therapeutical.

He thought back to the last half hour, just a very small moment in today's work, to sitting once again at the piano in the rec room with Emma. "You saved me," she'd told him. For a long time, he hadn't wanted any thanks at all, from any of the people he'd saved, because he didn't want to think about whether or not he deserved their gratitude. For the first time since he'd taken up his job as a paramedic again last August, even though he couldn't remember ever feeling this physically exhausted, he felt rested, at peace with the world.

In his almost empty apartment, all those newspaper cuttings on the wall suddenly looked hollow, pretentious.

Slowly, one by one, he took them off. He lingered for a while on his first, aware that there might be new paper cuttings in the morning, but he didn't care. There would be hundreds of EMTs and paramedics in the city who would search the papers for inch-tall representations of themselves in the photos of the wreckage. A hundred and fifty lives saved. A hundred more lost.

He threw the cutting on a chair as someone knocked on his door.


End file.
